Captive
by AbRaCaDaBrA
Summary: Sequel to Target. Styker, Yuriko, Kurt Wagner, and the continuation of the plans to assassinate the President. Please review.
1. Part the First

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Captive

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by abracadabra

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~X~

"Ihr name wird gepriesen. Ihr königreich kommen," _And zhank you, Fazher, for giving me such an opportunity to be in zhe circus and see America. _

Pain, confusion, hot wax. Someone, someone horribly strong, had taken his arms and slammed his upper body right into the candle rack, the peaceful flame of his offering now a white-hot warning beacon by his right temple. He shouted out in German, not understanding or caring about his own words. His mind blanked with the shock of both being caught completely by surprise and being forcibly held in such a peaceable place, and he let his instincts take over as he tried to free out of his attacker's grip by struggling and rolling. 

If he tried to teleport, his racing and unthinking mind would more than likely send him into a solid object nearby, and there was also a good chance all of or a part of his attacker would travel, too. But now, even his dexterity from a lifetime of acrobatics was no use – there were more now, strange men, cold men, holding him down and keeping his upper body pinned. 

He thrashed his legs, trying to get some sort of grip on the ground with his toes, but even more forceful arms pushed them down into the dusty stone floor. A gloved hand appeared in his vision, and like a cornered and frightened animal, he extended his neck and bit it with wide, sharp fangs. His yellow eyes rolled as he continued to fight the strange people, and something hard and alien was shoved into his mouth. For a few precarious seconds, he gagged, but the adrenaline pumping into his system was finally starting to clear the haze from his mind. 

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Calm down, he told himself. _Concentrate. If you focus enough, you can travel vizh just yourself. _Somehow, it took more energy to stop fighting, but he stilled himself and closed his eyes.

Now, there was talking, walking, someone behind him, surrounded with a nebulous aura of intimidation and fear. Kurt brought his breath in slowly and evenly, focusing on getting himself away.

Suddenly, there was something on his neck. It felt cold and wet at first, and then, a split second later, a horrible, biting, burning sensation burrowed itself into his spinal cord. His eyes opened and he saw ice-blue spots in his vision. He tried to shout out, but when he couldn't even open his mouth, he realized that, somehow, he had entirely lost control of his body. _Nien! Nien!_ he screamed, without a sound or sign.

The men – and women, he now saw – lifted him, and the flashlight clattered out of his slack lips and extinguished the candle. Trapped in his useless, limp body, Kurt could do nothing but cry out mentally to whomever was listening as they lifted him and carried him out of his violated sanctuary. 

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~X~

"Colonel Krawley – good work. Your efforts in the war on mutants are laudable."

"Thank you, sir." Krawley shook Stryker's cold hand as the three special ops exited the private – and, therefore, easily trackable – helicopter. "And good luck with…the training…." He motioned to the sheet-covered bundle in the back of the helicopter, blue tail peeking out barely noticeable in the night and subtle red light of the soldiers' gelled headlamps. 

"Yes. Well, I have practice." He glanced at his watch, grabbed Yuriko, who had been at his side, lowered her head, and effortlessly inserted serum from a pocket syringe into the caustic hole in the back of her neck. She never protested or even flinched, and stood up afterwards as if nothing had happened. Krawley looked rather apprehensively from the assistant to Stryker, who then added to the colonel, "Remember, we never had this operation."

"Of course."

The military strategist nodded, and without any further acknowledgment, followed Yuriko into the cockpit. With control and dexterity, her slim, long fingers flew over the panels, and soon the propellers began to throb. The helicopter rose into the sky over Washington, D.C. and, after using a few connections and well-put phrases, Stryker secured an unhindered and private flight to Alkali Base for the next six hours. 


	2. Part the Second

He had been seeing nothing but dim cloth, hearing nothing but propellers, and feeling nothing but the sheet over his body and the rumble of the engines for longer than he could even pretend to judge. Under the strange drug, which gripped his cerebrum and spinal cord in a tyrannous first, he could do more than breathe a bit shallowly and, if he really needed it, blink slowly and painfully.

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Vhy? he kept asking himself. _Who are zhese people? Vhat do zhey vant?_ He mentally sighed, not being about to do so physically, and gently prayed for help. He slowly drifted into an uneasy consciousness with his eyes half-closed.

Suddenly, he woke up, a tingling sensation where he had felt the controlling pressure before. He blinked, feeling only a whisper of discomfort. Was he free again? Tentatively, he moved his right first finger. Something happened – whether there was movement or not, he couldn't tell, but there was definitely some sort of response in his digit. He clenched his fist, and saw creases appear in the dimly lit white sheet above him. He could function again!

Carefully, still a little odd feeling, he pulled the white sheet off of his face. He was in a surprisingly roomy helicopter belly, with padded walls and a few belted seats behind the cockpit. In the low light of the control panel, he saw two figures - one short and wide, the other tall and lean. Out the window was a grey darkness that suggested the people were busy finding their way through a snowstorm. 

"There's the base," shouted the female into her headset, pointing at a radar screen. 

"Good. Begin landing sequence," replied the man.

Kurt sat up. He had been lying on a simple stretcher on the floor, and hadn't been restrained in any way. He quickly looked around for anywhere to hide, but the helicopter was empty. He stretched, feeling his muscles un-cramp but remain sore. His tail felt worst, more than likely from being trampled on. Slowly, and as quietly as possible, he slid out from under the sheet and stood up. He was a little wobbly from what could have been hours of total lack of movement. Wind buffeted the helicopter, causing it to lurch sideways, and he fell to the floor.

The woman must have had an amazing sense of hearing, for even Kurt couldn't hear his fall over the propellers, but she quickly turned around and stared at him with a dull, surprised expression. The man looked at her. "What's the –" He looked back and cursed. "Yuriko, get him!"

Barely had she been commanded when the Japanese female tore off her restraints and headset and advanced on Kurt. He looked around wildly for something to defend himself with or hide behind, but when he looked back at the woman, she had suddenly grown incredibly long metal claws out of her fingers.

"You are a mutant?" he asked her, even more confused than before. She replied by continuing to track him with cold, bright blue eyes and an odd, maniacal expression. Kurt began to back up, his hurt tail lashing behind him slowly. Suddenly, she sprang at him with a growl, claws first. Where she landed, there was nothing but a puff of dark blue, sulfurous smoke. He was behind her now, next to one of the empty seats. Angrier than ever, she ran at him with a growl, but like before, he had teleported away before she even touched him. 

The blizzard outside raged on, and the helicopter was being thrown about by the fierce winds. The man still in the cockpit seemed unfazed by the storm, and provided an odd, rather peaceful contrast to the chase occurring behind him.

Suddenly, a strong gust came up, causing the helicopter to swerve dramatically. The two mutants were thrown into the wall – the Japanese went into a padded section claws first, and the German put his head into a girder of the helicopter's belly. 

Kurt, crumpled on the floor, woke in pain and tried to raise a three-fingered hand to his head to check for blood. The hard fist of control was around his spinal cord again, and his heart sank. Without warning, a soft, strong, horribly un-metaphorical long-clawed hand wrapped around his throat and moved his head upward to the deadly mutant. She looked at him with a sick smile, and he knew she had somehow guessed he couldn't move again with such close contact. He noticed that the helicopter had stopped moving, and realized that he had been knocked out and then taken control of. 

The man appeared in his vision, his balding and short look a façade over some twisted, demon-like mind. "Let's try this again, shall we? Stand up." Kurt, with a horrible, sinking feeling, felt his legs straighten and steady, making him stand. "Now walk." Uncontrollably, his feet moved, and his whole body began walking normally, as if under Kurt's control. He followed the man and woman, fighting it mentally all the while. As they walked over fresh snow, the grey sky slowly lightening, the man asked him, "Any limits to that skill of yours?"

Horrified, Kurt felt himself speak. "I can only go two, zhree miles at zhe most. And I can't go if I don't see or know vhere I am going, or I might end up in somezhing solid."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Von't."

The man smiled and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. "Yuriko?"

Still walking, the female wrapped it around Kurt's head and eyes, blocking him from seeing where he was going, and preventing any chance of his escape. 


	3. Part the Third

Stryker led the blindfolded mutant into a holding cell deep in the heart of the dam. He kept the captive from seeing anything, even under the drug, just in case it wore out and he wanted to escape. Along the way, some underdog, trying to be a suck-up, had rushed up to ask him how he was doing. Before he had even finished speaking, Stryker had demanded coffee. The man came back with a hot mug of strong black coffee so fast Stryker would have been sure he had been some sort of mutant, had he not done such a thorough background check on everyone he associated with. 

Now the captive was secure, and Stryker was in his Alkali Base office, sipping the coffee slowly as he pondered out his next step: to train the captive. The teleportational ability was amazing, and once recuperated from his various struggles, he hoped the captive would be strong and agile. His blue, demonic appearance would definitely be an asset, once past the general security at the White House. He wasn't quite sure how to disguise the captive, but there was a good chance the captive himself knew.

"Yuriko?" 

His assistant appeared out of the dark corner of his office and stood by him at his desk. He re-administered the serum into her neck, looking at a clock on the wall, and then sent her back to the shadows. Stryker admired the greenish-yellow liquid in the low light. The first time it was used, it was basically a sedative, but the more it was used, the more natural the person under its control became. You could have an entire conversation with Yuriko and never guess she wasn't functioning on her own. To him, the solution was a miracle. 

He turned on a small cable television, continually on news, and caught the tail end of a dark-haired, plain-looking woman talking with stars in her eyes about the Mutant Registration Act.

"-and so we realize that we are all _people_, whether human or mutant."

"Hippie propaganda bullshit," growled Stryker, turning the set off and getting out of his chair. No, he wasn't going to wait for something else when such a misguided country needed him to work against the mutants. "Yuriko, come on. We have some training to do."

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~X~

Kurt stared at the grimy wall, blinking, breathing, and not doing much else. At least he could do such things more naturally now. There came a groan of metal on metal, and he watched passively as the thick door opened. The male and the mutant were there, the first with a syringe and the second with a length of cloth. The man put more of the controlling acidic liquid into his neck as the woman blindfolded Kurt. The third dose of the drug somehow gave him more control, and yet made him even more helpless, as he found himself standing and beginning to walk, guided by the woman, without any vocal commands from either. 

They walked through passageway after passageway, the trip far too complex and confusing for Kurt to remember – not from lack of trying, though. Finally, the cold grip of the woman on his shoulder stopped him, and his blindfold was removed, to reveal a high-ceilinged room with many large cylinders and lots of electrical equipment. 

"Attack Yuriko, Kurt." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the woman – Yuriko, that was the second time he'd heard her name – take a gun out of a bag she carried. On Stryker's command, he turned towards her and, despite his still sore body, ran towards her. She casually pointed the gun at him and fired, but he had teleported behind her and kicked her magnificently in the back of the head. _Mein Gott!_ he screamed in his mind. _I don't vant to hurt her! _She went to give him a roundhouse kick in return, but he was now in front of her, sending a forceful punch into her jaw. There was a sickening crunch, and Kurt cried inside. Yuriko shook her head, and Kurt was amazed to see her mouth reset itself. Before he knew what he was doing, she was shooting at him again, but now he was behind one of the prostrate cylinders. When she turned, trying to see him, he reappeared at her side and swung out at her knees, knocking her off her feet onto her back. H

"That's enough!" Stryker appeared out of the darkness, and Kurt's body's blood thirst was suddenly vaporized. He was very glad to see Yuriko rise out of the floor, unharmed, but had a terrible feeling that whomever Stryker seemed to be preparing him to hurt wouldn't heal like a mutant. "I see you know what you're doing. Do you know anything about blending into normal humans?"

"Yes," answered Kurt's mouth for him. _Nien!_ shouted his mind, but no one in the world would ever hear him argue. 

Stryker and Yuriko shared a sinister smile as the military strategist called into an electronic link in his pocket, "Prepare the helicopter for a return to my office in the Capitol."

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~X~

It was about nine o'clock in the morning as the quiet man, wearing a hat, large jacket, and sunglasses, walked up the steps to the White House tour....

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~x~X~x~X~x~

A/N: Ta-da! So, what did you think about _Captive_? Better or worse than _Target_? Suggestions? Comments? Questions? Please write a review! 

Thanks for reading my story, and thanks to all you wonderful people who reviewed _Target_. I hope this one delivered! -AbRaCaDaBrA 


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